Biting the hand of Project Fear

Experts warn NHS at risk from Unionist media hysteria

In Scotland, the Unionist media went through the Wonderland mirror many moons ago into a land where up is down, black is white, arse is over elbow, and where good is always bad but bad is never mentioned. There are opiate addicts with a firmer grasp on reality, and indeed more teeth capable of getting a firm bite on a situation. Until very recently the phrase “Scottish Unionist media” was tautological, but despite the fact there is a pro-independence digital media and one Sunday and one daily paper which support independence, as far as the Constitutional debate is concerned the traditional media landscape in Scotland is still overwhelmingly dominated by adherents of the view that nothing at all can possibly demonstrate that Scotland is capable of doing things better by itself, unless it’s a photo opportunity for Ruth Davidson.

The result is that in Scotland we don’t get a comprehensive news service, we get the print and broadcasting equivalent of a piss-stained drunk who’s staggered out of the golf club and is now lying in the street shouting incoherent abuse at passers by about how SNP management of the NHS, education, or Scotrail means that Scotland could never ever become an independent country. In a normal country, the media would realise that how any single political party manages any single aspect of government has bugger all to do with the wider issue of independence. In a normal country, the media would understand and explain that how a single independence supporting party runs the NHS has no bearing on whether Scotland should become a properly self-governing democracy in which other political parties will be able to form the government and implement their own distinctive health policies. We don’t live in a normal country. We live in the land of the piss stained golf club ranter where independence and SNP are synonyms, and who insists that Unionism is the same as neutrality and balance.

Compare and contrast, hospital beds and frigates. Only one of them floats the boat of the Unionist press, and it’s not the serial broken promises of the MoD about the frigates that may or may not be built on the Clyde. During the referendum campaign of 2014 Scotland was promised that the MoD would build 13 Type-26 frigates on the Clyde, but only if Scotland voted against independence. After Westminster secured its No vote, the number was reduced to 8, and now it’s been reduced again to 3. Yet the Scotsman newspaper still regarded this as a fantastic boost for the Scottish shipbuilding industry and proof that we need Westminster to look after us. The lies, misrepresentations, and broken promises of Westminster are conveniently overlooked. The lesson is that Scotland must be grateful for whatever crumbs we’re offered.

This week, the health charity the Nuffield Trust which specialises in health research and health policy published a report on the state of NHS Scotland. The title of the report was Learning from Scotland’s NHS, which you might think was an indicator that the thrust of the study was that the struggling NHS in the rest of the UK might benefit from copying how things are done in Scotland, and this was in fact what the report concluded. Good news, you might think. Now, no one is claiming that the Scottish NHS is perfectly rosy. No one is claiming that there are no issues, challenges, or difficulties in the service. However the fact remains that even though health in Scotland is funded by a Barnett Formula which grants Scotland an amount to spend on health which is directly related to what is spent on health in England, Scotland is making a considerably better fist of its NHS provision than the shambling disaster that is the Tory-run NHS in England which is lurching ever closer to the cliff edge of privatisation. This was the main point of the Nuffield Trust report.

Much the same was reported in an opinion piece earlier in the week in the Guardian, written by an anonymous senior manager in the Scottish NHS who wrote that despite not being personally a supporter of the SNP, she or he recognised that the SNP knew what it was doing on health and broadly praised the policies of the Scottish Government. The anonymous manager pointed out that by far the greatest threat to the NHS in Scotland was Brexit and the insecurity it has created amongst EU citizens who work for NHS Scotland and the difficulties it creates for future recruitment. In terms of challenges for NHS Scotland, the senior manager didn’t consider independence rated a mention at all.

Surprise, surprise, this wasn’t what certain parts of the Unionist press decided to focus on in their coverage of the Nuffield Trust report. The Herald, which has recently taken to publishing opinion pieces from arch-Tory Chris Deerin because David Torrance isn’t Conservative enough, decided that the most important thing to take from the Nuffield Trust report wasn’t that NHS Scotland is being competently run, they decided that the main point of the report was an attack on independence. Experts warn NHS at risk from independence focus screamed the paper’s lead story on its front page. The looming disaster of a Conservative induced Brexit didn’t get a mention.

In fact there was but one single mention of independence in the entire 61 pages of the Nuffield Trust report. It came in the following passage on page 29:

Several interviewees from across the spectrum of roles referred to a polarised political culture, with the Scottish Government seeking majority support for independence and a largely hostile press looking to attack their record on the NHS. This could make contentious decisions about shifting resources away from hospital care seem almost impossible.

Another way of putting this is that the Scottish Government is handicapped in its ability to make sensible decisions about healthcare because of a hostile press which seeks to turn every decision made by an SNP administration into an attack on independence. We have a press which habitually conflates SNP decisions in a devolved administration with the wider question of independence. The lesson to learn here isn’t that the question of independence is putting the Scottish NHS at risk, it’s that Scotland is being badly served and our public services are being prejudiced by a media doesn’t fully reflect the range of views in Scotland and which is incapable of – or unwilling to – distinguish between the policies of a single party in a devolved administration and the far bigger question of the constitution. A more accurate headline would have been Experts warn NHS at risk from Unionist media hysteria.

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Spot on Paul, so how can we address this problem with the bias MSM. I sugested a week or so ago that the YES movement should come together and organise ways to go forward, they could then collectively do things together like stop reading or watching MSM outlets for a week or so at a time.I know many of us do this, but collectively we might make them think about their lies, and with the print media desperate for readers they might get the message.

A boycott of advertisers’ goods and services would make an impact too.
I stopped taking the Herald in 2014 after fifty years, and basically do not watch BBC TV any more, other than now and again, to analyse Brewer and Co’s systematic monstering of Independence / SNP.
Perhaps we should write to advertisers as individuals informing them that we will not use their goods or services if they continue to fund arch right MSM outlets whose scribbler-whores attack lie about, and threaten Scotland and its people.
The latest nonsense about Scotland economy and the unrelenting tide of lies that we were about to be sucked into a recession while England was breaking out the cigars and champagne to celebrate a Pre Brexit boom, was cheerily spouted everywhere last week by paid mouthpieces and Yoon politician quotes, who will apparently say anything for money, especially if it is a lie or a threat to their own people, is a perfect example of coordinated Project Fear and Smear which dominates our Establishment funded Media and Professional Classes.
They are all off on holiday now; but the hutcheons, Brewers, and Magnussons have a library of EssEnnPee Bad quotes to fall back on while Davidson and Dugdale lap up the sun on £2100 per week, while they deny uirses police firemen and care workers a CoL rise.
Note the number of times ‘A senior Labour insider warned.’, ‘Atop Union official urged’, or ‘Ruth Davidson’s Office condemned’, with the relevant compliant Yoon hack adding the EssEnnPee Bad strap.
‘Too little too late.’ ‘Patients are dying’. and, ‘4000 teachers sacked by Sturgeon’ will permeate the headlines while WATP Professor Tomkins, Her Majesty’s Eleven Murdo Fraser, and God Bless the Pope James Kelly dangler their wee bigoted legs off the Dunoon pier fishin’.£1200 a week for doing feck all. My oh my.
We live in Post Truth Scotland, where the end will always justify the means in Yoon eyes, and our organised religions, and Establishment bodies stand by while Scots citizens suffer, die, clothe their kids at charity shops, and live in a subservient cloud slaves to the whims of citizens of another land.

PS ,Paul, in my rage, I forget my manners.
Absolutely brilliant.
I no longer shop at Asda (Walmart) , Tesco’s, Sainsbury’s, or Barrhead Travel, whose employees were sent an e mail to their desk threatening redundancy if they voted Yes.
When I want to buy my next WMD so that I can murder hundreds of thousands of innocent men and women to demonstrate my might as a World Power, I won’t be commissioning BAE, that’s for sure.
No more Mr Nice Guy.
I could not be in the same room as Rennie Dugdale and Davidson. They are cold inhumane agents of Evil in my eyes; I no longer have the patience to listen to their litany of lies, in the knowledge that they lie intentionally, in the certain knowledge that they condemn millions of Scots citizens to perpetual suffering and,for many tens of thousands, premature debilitating deaths because of the treachery and lies of the Scots Yoons.
What kind of human being with a conscience does that for money?
Answers on a post card to Beelzebub, c/o Hades.
Be warned: if you advertise a TWOFOR Wednesday Night pre theatre deal in the Herald, at least 45% Yes voters won’t be taking up your doubtless wonderful offer while you continue to prop up the Propaganda Porn of The Herald, The Scotsman, that well known Police Gazette, the Daily Record, or The English ‘Scottish’ Rags.
I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take any more.
I urge all to (metaphorically) open your window, lean out, and scream at the top of your voices:-
‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take any more.’

Anyway, Jack, there’s always a silver lining. Apparently the English NHS are short on capacity for mental health patients, quite a few of whom are being sent north and handled by the Scottish NHS. This must mean that (1) in order to have spare psychiatric beds, the Scots must be saner on the whole than the English, and (2) if you’re an exile doun south, an gae aff yer heid, there’s a good chance of you being sent home; and the way things are going …

The thing is , Marco, Taylor produces a graph implying that Scotland is failing in comparison to the rest of the UK, and that it is somehow the Holyrood Government’s fault.
The next item on the news, 10 Job Centres to close with the concomitant loss of jobs tax revenue and so on.
It’s the English parliament which is harming the Scottish economy, and there’s hee-haw any of us Up Here can do about it.
It’s the English parliament which is closing HMRC sites Up Here and moving thousands of public service jobs to Crawley. More revenue lost at the hands of Mundell’s English colleagues and not a pip out of this odious little squeak.
3 frigates, maybe, not 13, and Belfast, Barrow and other ports in the South may get the remaining contracts, and an English parliament gets to decide all of this. Taylor and others blame the downturn in oil revenue for some of the downturn in our GDP yet it is an English Government which is allowing their friends, and doubtless in some cases relatives, to extract the oil for free while the Norwegian Government accrued £60 billion in oil revenue last year.
Reporting Scotland implies that it is our own fault that our economy isn’t growing, which is a complete distortion of reality.
The warped rUK versus Scotland graph showing Scotland ‘lagging behind’ is a fiction, rather like the non existent £15 billion deficit iScotland would have if we had FFA.
We are beyond the stage where we have to justify independence to scribble whores working for England’s Establishment,
Mundell prattled on about the ‘new powers’ he has ‘given’ Scotland. Well we all know that there are no new powers, only a transfer of accountability for collecting a small proportion of tax revenue Up Here.
I am sick fed up being taken for a fool by Taylor, Brewer, and Co.
They pervert and twist the truth to blacken Scotland and our Government.
The aim is to drum on about how wee poor and stupid we are to run a country without handouts from more prosperous England, which, Mr Taylor, is shite on oil derriks.
We have absolutely no control over vast areas of the Scottish economy, and you know this.
But hey, Scotland is Shite is the message.
Thanks a bunch.

Well said, and sadly all too true. Even without government/press bias there would be a problem simply due to geography and population distribution. If you live in Scotland and are involved in almost any kind of UK-wide organisation, you’ll frequently find yourself travelling down to England for meetings etc. But when you’re based in the South, then Scotland is just “the bit up there”, a sort of “far away place of which we know little”. Because of this, your average Englishman sees Scotland as little more than a sort of country park, so naturally Indy is incomprehensible, they “just don’t get it”. And of course the press constantly play to the crowd with their endless SNP-Bad message.

BTW Wings has a good take on the NHS report and press distortion thereof …

“Perhaps we should write to advertisers as individuals informing them that we will not use their goods or services if they continue to fund arch right MSM outlets” Worth a go, but that would be one heckuva lot of letters to write, Jack! I agree in principle, though. The only way to get their attention is to hit them where it hurts … in their over-stuffed wallets!

Wendy, I’ve just watched Reporting Scotland item on the .8% growth in the Scottish economy in the first quarter of 2017; heralded as good news as it avoided the recession ‘experts’ were forecasting last week and bellowed by the EssEnnPee Bad media at evry turn.
Taylor and Bird having a fireside chat. Great news for the Scottish economy BUT…Is it a blip ? Is it a palne, is it a bird?
Then a graph of UK growth outstripping Scotland…Aye, right.

At least Spain admit they need catalonia because it would hurt them in the wallet something the English currently think we are doing to them being part of the union and what gets me is the stupid English of England accept this crap unconditionally and without question

I really don’t see a way to take on the media apart from the BBC. They are the only ones who really should be impartial at all times but are clearly anti SNP and indy. What could and should happen though is that a campaign of non payment is organised and in doing so should open up a debate on the state of scotlands media and how it has become an anti Scottish and anti democratic stain on our society. Everyone knows the British media are a rabid bunch of billionaire owned propaganda peddlers but we should never stop repeating it until they start to behave in a more appropriate manner.

I agree with this – even those south of the border are making rumblings about a campaign of non-payment in protest against “Auntie’s” bias. As for the press … the simple answer is just to stop buying their rags and to write – as individuals – explaining that we are doing so and why!

Stopped paying the propaganda tax in the run up to 2014 referendum.It should be a condition of SNP membership to stop paying the BBC. I don’t understand why the SNP are so timid in their answers to the idiot BBC/MSM interviewers. Should be treated with undisguised derision and contempt at every opportunity including highly personalised attacks going for the man/woman as well as the ball.

Got it in one WGD! It’s infuriating. The MSM are, however, fully supported by the unionist supporters on the various fora, who wade in with both boots despite there being evidence to the contrary. When you raise the evidence you are a brainwashed minion, can’t think for yourself and all the other mince they throw. I really really want to see some comeuppance. Even a grudging positive report comes with caveats, which the unionists repeat back with glee. And there are very few positive reports. What is it with these people, media and public. Don’t they want to see Scotland progressing well?

And if by a long shot the rUK is ‘powering ahead’ we all know why, oil. It’s like gold, you can borrow against it as well. Scotland’s oil, siphoned away to rUK, mostly England, while they keep Scotland as poor with begging bowl as possible without it seeming obvious to most of the population. both sides of the border.

Criminals.

Tell everyone Scotland is scraping along the bottom, while they take Scotland’s very lucrative resources, talk up their economy, people not scared of brexit, couldn’t give a s**t about Scotland. Really typical but dangerous tactics, think Palestine, Venezuela. People do not really care, if they benefit from a country and a people suffering, at the hands of their own regimes.

if there’s going to be a boycott of newspapers, BBC, advertisers and so forth it needs to be done nationwide.
Individuals who decide to boycott something by no longer spending their money on it should just do it –
Then spread the word to neighbours, friends and acquaintainces, workmates, members of any sports/cultural clubs and associations they belong to and convince them to do the same. If an individual has been convinced so far as to decide to boycott something s/he will have persuasive arguments to convince others.
I would even suggest the boycott is carried out quietly – there’s no need to inform the papers etc.
They’ll realise what’s going on when sales go down as will advertisers.

I wonder if Westminster is afraid that Scotland might become independant before Brexit is done. After Brexit the plundering of Scotland’s resources can go full throttle through privatization.
IMO Independence will need to be wrestled from the corrupt and greedy government. Do you really think TM or her successor will give permission for another referendum unless they are certain of the results?
Follow the money and it gets clearer.

For years there has been talk of boycotting the MSM. I know many do hence the drop in sales of newspapers. I realise there are other factors affecting this as well.

I think the Yes movement through the Scottish YES convention should call for a total MSM boycott for a specific week. If all 45% of us do this they will notice. The convention should track the MSM for a month and then publish the list to be boycotted for what week. Yes they may be taken to court, so what.

The Scottish Government could not do this for political reasons but the SC could. Just a thought. Lets hit back.

With “Fake News” and state media manipulation very much in public awareness, surely now is the time for the SNP and SG to take off the gloves and call the MSM out for what it is: blatant propaganda.

What’s to loose by dropping the politeness and going for the jugular? Public confidence in the MSM has never been lower – now is the time to strike – hit me hard and destroy what is left of their credibility. 🙂

The British press know that if British identity is to survive and of course by extension,the British state,then Scottish identity has to be supressed.
They do this by trying to associate being Scottish with failure.
When failure doesn’t exist,then it is manufactured in order to reinforce the message that Scotland cannot survive outside the UK.
Fortunately we now have the internet,which for now is not controlled by either the British state or it’s wealthy supporters.

The BBC & all the media have a real problem that they really cant get to grips with , they have never understood our demand to be a normal country , they treat half the country as if they have resurrected the flat earth society and embraced some kind of Voodoo Cult ,
They have no logical argument as they would have to question the very existence of every country on the Planet , Most of us just want a normal country where we govern ourselves there is no argument that can be made against this state of affairs , it is just Normal .
So our media have to invent and promote in your face Lies and smears to try and convince the other half we are the nut jobs but they cant quite figure out how , so they criticise every single thing our government has achieved , the BBC are past masters at this even when good news is a headline , they always manage the “BUT” even when they are proved wrong , what happens nothing its conveniently forgotten only bad news makes it through every single bloody time , if we believed our media , we live in a catastrophic , hopeless, drought , famine , plague infested country.And it is always the fault of the SNP i mean who votes for these people who inflict all this hardship of their fellow countrymen and women . A totally dysfunctional Country we live in .

Thanks Paul, as always informative, inspiring and intuitive.. With this blog.. You are really spoiling us!!

I posted this on another thread a few weeks back, if anybody else is fed up searching for a National in shops with piles of the other tripe..(I do make it known to the staff they should order more in, but to no avail..John Menzies it is!)
I was thinking maybe in asda (spit!- never use it unless there is no choice..) or one of the others mentioned by Jack above, I could take that whole pile of ‘mails’ or ‘suns’ in my trolley briefly, and distribute them around said store under the bottom shelves that have enough room for cleaning .. or papers..
That way the supermarkets and the print media get the message, just a thought for the collective!!

Meanwhile doon the watter in the toon that is Girvan, there has been a stooshie bubblin’ up..

Armed forces day recently saw a temporary flag pole erected prominently in town with butchers apron duly hung and service held..

Five days later, one of our shop keepers across from the flag, who is very, very pro Indy, made his views known in a fb tirade\ argument with local harbour master, and complained to local councillor..
Read a bit in the local rag, interviewing(read siding with) harbour master, stating ‘there was no political motivation’ in the raising of the fleg for British armed forces day… For nearly a week.. On the road from Glasgow to Belfast, on the run-up to the marching season.. Really??.. you think??
Flag is now down, however heard tonight shopkeeper got a doing from some mob stopping off from the shankill rd at the weekend..

6 days to go till the twelfth too, could this be the ulsterisation we were promised??

What needs to be done is to create a website and Facebook pages explains how to boycott the MSM and how to complain accurately and convincingly about the inaccurate news spewed over our screens and in our news papers. Give links and create forms to enable all willing to complain. A Facebook page that highlights the injustices and fake news and then create links for people to complain and boycott would be a great success. The websites/fb pages should also ask their readers to pledge support for various activities such as boycotting supermarkets or not buy papers that they used to, boycotting bbc by just not watching or not paying their lic. Keep a tally of numbers, this would scare the hell out of organisations and would be an incentive for many to join the thousands of disgruntled at the state of the inaccurate and down right fake news we have to put up with. If people knew how to complain or boycott and if we made it easy they would be far more likely to do so. I have made a good few complaints to BBC, it’s a hellish process and every time I got no where, but the complaints have to be recorder and they are rising. It would be good to flood them with complaints every time they are downright wrong or biased. People need help and they are angry enough to flock to a place they can get help. Site the inaccurate news/article and give links on how to complain. Write the complaint for people, if need be. Tell people why we should boycott organisations and ask them to pledge that they have. Keep a total. It would be an amazing site. It’s a thought!

it’s easy to see what many have been saying for so very long on the nature of the media. That’s not the only problem though, is it? It takes two to tango. That the media are compromised both politically and corporately isn’t a shock. It’s not even… news. Trust in the media and in political institutions is at an all time national low. The problem isn’t just in or with the media.

It takes one party to tell a lie and one party willing to believe a lie. You tell a lie big enough and often enough, then no matter how little you trust the source… it becomes the reality.

The media and political opponents rely on people’s willingness to believe the worst in others, in themselves, in each other. They rely on people’s willingness to be given an opinion rather than form one.

It’s not just a broken media which needs fixed. People do. Our heads have been turned so many times we don’t know who to trust and most especially not ourselves, not our own judgement.

We’re broken too, both as individuals and as a society. We need to trust. We have to trust. We want to trust, but we are unwilling to trust, because that means opening our personal defences and our minds. It means placing everything that you are in the hands of someone else.

That’s the definition of unity and partnership, yes? Placing your faith and trust in something or someone and knowing they’ll be there for you no matter what.

What happens to unity and partnership when you remove that trust? When it’s deliberately undermined, damaged, misrepresented, betrayed to the point of mass confusion. Divide and rule. Confusion to your enemies. A society and societal unity broken and in disarray, broken to the point where those who are trying to save or help are pushed away. Because those who actually betrayed a trust have placed in your mind that no one could or should be trusted.

Take a look around you these days basically. Politics as it is practised.

What you see is what you get.

Maybe folks should have a think about that. We’ve come so very far and through so very much to come within touching distance. What’s being attempted here was never going to be easy. We’re talking about independence, nation statehood and popular sovereignty achieved by peaceful and popular ballot. Personally, I’d say that’s a pretty big thing. Historic even.

Be a shame if fear, depression and frustration snatched defeat from the jaws of …etc. For the want of trust in each other.

Sam, I too am somewhat preoccupied over the next week or so.
However the time has come to flush out the Agents of Evil, be it in the media, or in the ranks of the Red Blue and Yellow Tory Fifth Columnists.
Scots Unionists are lying through their teeth, acutely aware that their Unionist dogma is literally sending their fellow Scots to premature deaths, and at the last count, consigning 500,000 of their neighbours to permanent poverty and penury, engineered by a political Elite, who, no matter how few representatives they manage at Holyrood and WM, demand to be the ‘main’ political force in Scotland, a fictional chimera endorsed and supported by Taylor, and Co., McKay and Co, and the long line of lovely jubbley Appearance Money scribbler-whores from the Yoon Dead Tree Scrolls, who fill our screens diurnally, to reinforce their hosts’ venal opinion that the EssEnnPee are bad, the Yes Movement delusional and dwindling, and that anything Scotland is shite and subservient and inferior to the Glorious English Empire.
My language is no longer measured, but is no more fractious than the Unionist filth that flows from the mouths of Davidson Dugdale and Rennie.
They lie deliberately and with malicious intent; they would smash Holyrood to smithereens tomorrow, and take their seat in the Lords as reward, while Scotland burns.
I am beyond frustrated.
Brexit will kill Scotland dead if we stand by and do nothing.
I shall never allow that to happen.
Must dash, something about taking the Canuke visitors through to Edinburgh and a visit to a museum dedicated to a wee Skye Terrier.
All this fuss over a wee dug?
I know, hard to believe, innit?

Excellent Headline Paul , this can be used to describe every failing public service in Scotland , The whole country is failing to function , nothing works , now even the dumbest unionist must see this is a manufactured lie , it’s becoming embarrassing now and it must be evident to even the most blinkered amongst them , something is not right with our media and the BBC or (lies r us) inc .

At my local SNP branch post-election(s) meeting /washup /wake etc., as a way of a) maintaining the enthusiasm of the foot soldiers who slogged the streets leafletting (because they may be needed again at short notice) and b) keeping the electorate informed, it was decided to produce a quarterly publication, to be delivered by hand and electronically. While the publication would, I suppose, contain the usual ‘get to know your representative’ stuff, the content could also act as a counterbalance to the msm negativity – there is always plenty of good news in thoughtcontrolscotland / talking-up Scotland to expand upon – trains running on time, the best UK health service, a bridge under budget and on time, all those lovely off shore wind turbines creating jobs and soon to be providing Scotland with more electricity than it consumes – and so it goes on. And, of course, it would be an opportunity to remind people of the benefits of living in a country which has 8.3% of the UK population , but has
32% of the land area.
61% of the sea area.
90% of the fresh water.
65% of the natural gas production.
96.5% of the crude oil production.
47% of the open cast coal production.
81% of the untapped coal reserves.
62% of the timber production.
46% of the total forest area.
92% of the hydro electric production.
40% of the wind wave and solar energy production.
60% of the fish landings.
30% of the beef herd.
20% of the sheep herd.
9% of the dairy herd.
10% of the pig herd.
15% if the cereal holdings.
20% of the potato holdings… and
100% of the Scotch Whisky industry

It is time we all stopped referring to the MSM and called them what they are. They are, in fact, the English owned and controlled Fake News Media. Moreover, we should stop buying their Fake News, completely, just as we should stop paying the Television Tax to keep the EBC in business (and the EBC, a.k.a. BBC is also English owned and English controlled).

It is also time we stopped even listening to the mob of charlatans and liars in the English parliament, and announced UDI. If we don’t, we are liable to continue to be a mere colony of England, to be exploited and robbed of our money and resources. The Scottish people need to get up off their knees and stop tugging their forelocks to their colonial masters.

I’m taking advantage of my visitors’ jet lag and have just watched last night’s QT while the house is mercifully silent and long li-ins are the order of the day.
Jacob Ress Mogg featured, in Burton on Trent in front of a Little England audience of ‘take back control’ Brexiteers.
On tuition fees in England, Rees Mogg justified the Blue Tories’ position by referring to the Scots model of Free Tuition.
Apparently free university education in Scotland was unfair because graduates went on to earn ‘£200,000 per year’, while College places for the working class scruff were slashed to pay for it.
Rees Mogg at his fascist divide and conquer Fake Facts best.
Of course Dumbledor did not pull him up on this evil distortion. They are cut from the same Eton/Oxford cloth.
Well done, Donalda; QT continues to be a great waste of Scottish TV licence payers cash.
Scotland once more is shite.
The audience were in the main rapturous hand clapping Yoons looking forward to Great Britain conquering the world again. Boy are they in for a rude awakening.
Over on Derek Bateman’s blog, he writes an excellent piece, ‘The Day Job’, rubbishing Davidson’s and her Red and Yellow lackeys’ mantra, that the SNP should get on with the ‘day job’. Derek describes a week’s business at Holyrood which clearly demonstrated that the SNP /Green Government is taking care of business and doing a pretty good job of it.
Back to Rees Mogg’s lies, and Dimbleby’s sin of omission
This is from the SNP’s own Blog. (Sorry if this is too much, Paul, but I’m spitting teeth with anger at QT’s Fake Facts last night.)
“Here are 10 facts about Scotland’s colleges and universities, under the SNP.
1. Free tuition has been maintained, saving students in Scotland up to £27,000 compared to the cost of studying in England.
2. Scotland continues to punch above its weight with five universities in the top 200 – the same number as last year, and more than any other country per head of population except Luxembourg.
3. A record number of Scots have been supported into university, and young people from the most deprived areas are now more likely to study at university. But there’s much still to do. That’s why we’re taking forward a range of actions to ensure that by 2030 students from the 20 per cent most deprived backgrounds represent 20 per cent of university entrants.
4. More young women entering Scottish universities are choosing to study science, technology, engineering and maths subjects and now make up 48 per cent of all those gaining degrees.
5. Scottish graduates are more likely to be in employment or further study and earning more than graduates from universities elsewhere in the UK.
6. Over 117,000 full-time equivalent college places are now being provided – exceeding our commitment to maintain 116,000 places. And the number of full-time college students completing recognised higher education qualifications is at all-time high.
7. We’ve expanded the Education Maintenance Allowance in Scotland – now scrapped for new students south of the border – to support even more school pupils and college students from low income families.
8. The Disabled Students Allowance in Scotland has been protected and bursaries for students have been maintained, while the Tories have abolished both elsewhere in the UK.
9. We have invested over £550 million in college estates between 2007 and 2015. We’re supporting a further £300 million of investment to deliver new campuses at City of Glasgow, Inverness and Ayrshire Colleges. And Forth Valley and Fife Colleges will share £140 million for new campuses too.
10. 209,214 young people have had the opportunity to undertake a Modern Apprenticeship since 2007. And by 2020 a further 30,000 opportunities will be available every year.”

But our English neighbours will be aware of none of this Holyrood ‘day business’. They will deliberately be kept in the dark. Besides, their taxes are paying for Scotland’s free things, aren’t they?
Rees Mogg invited us to join in with his celebration of becoming a father for the sixth time.
Let’s hope he doesn’t get the sack, because 4 out of the six will get no help from Rees his Blue Tory Government.

Eerily, Joseph Goebbels ,Architect of the Nazi Propaganda machine had six children too.
I’ll leave you, Dear Reader, to Google the fate of Goebbels and his family.

The Yoons lie, and lie, and lie. The BBC provides the platform.
They have nothing left with which to defend their grubby little Union any more.

never fails to amuse me when a snide uninformed remark from a throwback from the thirties gets total unwarranted attention , These casual bits of misinformation more or less on a daily basis I am sure many people here swallow without question they have been fed this junk for so many years they have failed to notice the underlying propaganda designed to sap their soul into thinking we are just rubbish at everything , a useless Nation because we have been told we are .

Rees Mogg is known chez nous as Gussie Finknottle (from PG Wodehouse) but he is deliberately playing up to the image. From the time of Nanny and the Teddy Bear it is obviously a part he is playing which will resonate with the other once Young-now-Middle-Aged-Fogeys in the Tory establishment who seemingly find the persona lovably eccentric. Those of my generation who remember the cult of the Young Fogeys in the 80s and 90s don’t feel so fondly nostalgic.

Apparently recent surveys found that those who were less well-educated were more likely to vote Tory. Rees Mogg knows who he is talking to – ( or to whom he is talking.)

Unfortunately he comes over as quite intelligent and gives the impression that he knows what he’s talking about. He may be arguing entirely logically, but from what to us are entirely unacceptable premises, which of course are never explicitly stated. This is honestly pretty scary, like the First WW officer bravely leading his men over the top to total disaster. The line between farce and tragedy is indeed a fine one …

Well said. It is now pretty widely accepted that there is a direct link between intelligence and Left-wing thought. The ability to empathise with other people is dependent upon intelligence and therefore those who have empathy, i.e. those with greater intelligence, will naturally have a more left-of-centre view of life than those without!

Herald Britland has a wee strap about Davidson and a photie of the wee chubby chancer in uniform reporting her 35 tweet rant at the EssEnnpee over her ‘honorary’ colonel status in the Week-end Warriors.
Edinburgh Castle as a backdrop of course.
What the fuck is going on here?
When did every hamlet in the land have to mount an ‘Armed Forces Day’?
Get back in your barracks, where you belong during peacetime, members of our ‘DEFENCE Force.
Davidson and the Red Blue and Yellow Tories love strutting their military stuff at every opportunity.
It reminds me of May Day in Moscow, and the evil parade of weapons and military might designed to frighten the bejaisus out of the rest of us.
Stop glorifying war and death, you evil little people.
I cannot imagine a worse advert for joining the Defence Forces than a fat wee lassie, who frankly looks utterly ridiculous in khaki.
She has no right as a serving politician to wear a military uniform of any sort. But that doesn’t stop this self publicising heartless little woman.
Who voted for her lot? How can anyone consider this shallow person to be a serious and capable politician?
It’s time the Herald had Mone with her tits hanging out on the front page, non?
What a pointless rag this once proud Thunderer has become.

And unionists wonder why they receive a frosty welcome on many an indy site Jack.

Basically the unionist press makes stuff up about independence, its support and the Scottish government. Why should independence support trust a word the media says, her majesty’s government representation or unionist support in general?

The establishment enjoy having the vast majority of the media on their side and unfettered access to this media as an aid to their cause. That their methods are patently anti democratic and transparently underhanded doesn’t bother them in the slightest. They’ll never lose any sleep over their words and actions and checking their collective phisogs in the mirror each day proves no problem either. They wouldn’t be any good at their job if it did.

Just so our visitors know. So long as your various soapboxes behave in this manner? You’ll find a pretty deaf ear whenever and wherever you show up.

Basically simple human nature. If you treat others with arrogance, contempt, misrepresentation and outright fabrication, don’t be stunned when you’re greeted with a less than warm, fuzzy welcome.

When you insult or denigrate people on a daily basis, suppress their democratic rights, their representation, and their spokespeople. Once again, don’t be surprised when they immediately jump down your neck. The supporters of the independence movement have had a pretty torrid time of it over the past few years and examples such as those ATL an all too common occurrence.

Maybe worth thinking about next time you feel independence support isn’t giving you a fair hearing.

“the Unionist press”?
We do a disservice to the independence cause by using the words ‘union’ or ‘unionist’. The Supreme Court ruling on Brexit proved that there is no union, and Scotland has no sovereignty, and that our people can vote however they wish but Westminster (i.e. 500+ English MP’s) will always decide for us. The UN Decolonization Committee would call them an ‘administrative Power’, and Scotland is therefore a colony, much as the UN describe Ireland as a ‘former colony’ despite the fact Ireland was also ostensibly, like Scotland, a ‘part’ of some so-called ‘union’. If there is no ‘union’ there can be no ‘unionist’ anything, and it was all a charade Scots have fallen for, for over 300 years of exploitation and counting. http://newsnet.scot/archive/brexit-vote-underline-scotland-not-country-colony/

I note that several compliant scribbler whores in the Dead Tree Scrolls throw in that Colonel Gaddafidson has taken time out of her ‘two week break/holiday’ to rant on Twitter because the Scottish Public, split emotionally between raucous derisive laughter at the sight of her podgy wee frame squeezed into camouflaged kit, and national outrage that this wee nobody insults the reputation and stature of our Defence Forces by implying that the safety and security which they defend is the Blue Tory version, of reward the rich, and punish the rest of us.
She is on a 9 week break with at least £10,800 in travellers’ cheques.
She is an abomination, a self promoting nobody who has contributed nothing to Scotland except damaging blows to our reputation and stature in the world.
She’ll be on holiday in Norn Irn, burning Kafflicks in effigy, and marching with the bands?
Disgusting little person.

“After an election or a referendum, even if you lose the vote, you are entitled to go on making the argument.

When a government in this country wins an election, the opposition does not say ‘oh that’s absolutely right I’ve got nothing to say for five years‘.

So, for those of us trying really hard over the last few weeks to follow what on earth is happening in this country: the Leave vote has left us with a group of leaders who, having lit the fire, have run away saying someone else can clear up the mess; the Prime Minister who put us in the mess has resigned; everybody is gone; all the people who put their cross down for Leave saying ‘this is what we want‘ – they seem to be getting a group of people who say ‘we can’t stop immigration, we can’t get £350 million, oh and there might be quite a lot of austerity… sorry, bye!‘